Crackling!

Hey hey! So here's the recipe for the roast pork loin with crackling that I made for Father's Day Lunch! I was a bit nervous about doing pork loin with crackling, as I'd never made it before - luckily, though it all turned out well! I have made pork loin twice, during my How to Eat Project, but the first time the crackling was removed and cooked separately, and the loin of pork with bay leaves was cooked without any crackling at all.

I didn't want to do the more familiar pork belly, as it's a bit fatty, and pork shoulder (whether whole and sliced or slow-roasted and made into pulled pork) would be way too much for four people. I had decided on my usual rack of pork (made on PORKDATE, PORKTOBERFEST II and once for my friends Kate and Rob)... but when we saw this beautiful boned and rolled free-range pork loin at Hagen's Organic Meats, we just had to have it!

It's actually really, really easy to roast pork loin, so this recipe is more of a guide on temperatures and cooking times than anything else. The proper recipe recipe is below, but I'll talk you through it too cos I'm nice like that.

So, buy your pork loin. We got one that was about 1.1 kilograms, which was probably a bit generous for four people - ask your butcher for advice! I always find joints of meat look smaller at the butcher than they do at home! The loins are usually sold already boned and rolled up, but I'm sure a good butcher will do this for you. Get them to score the skin too, to assist with making the crackling crackly.

Once you get the loin home, leave it, unwrapped, overnight in the fridge to really dry out the skin.

On the day you want to eat it, preheat the oven and bring the pork out of the fridge to come to room temperature. Thickly slice an onion and arrange it in the bottom of your roasting tray. This is like a little trivet that keeps air circulating under the pork as it roasts, and adds flavour to the pork and a great aroma. The onions could form the basis of a gravy once everything's cooked, but I can rarely be bothered making gravy for roast pork, and the roasted onions are also nice to eat as they are!

Ready for the oven

Place the dried-out pork on top, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with a generous amount of salt (for flavour, and to assist the drying-out of the crackling) and some fennel seeds.

You roast it at 210 C for 45 minutes per kilo. Note - at this temperature, the crackling needs at least 45 minutes to get good and crackly, so if your pork loin weighs less than a kilo, I'd suggest getting your butcher to remove the crackling when you buy it, and roasting it on a separate tray. (As per the "Calming Winter Lunch" in Nigella's How to Eat). That way you can remove the meat once it's cooked and allow the crackling to keep cooking while the meat rests.

Anyway, I didn't need to worry about that on this occasion.. and here's the roasted pork!

Yummmm

Crackly Goodness

Crackling!

Loin is such a great cut! It looks impressive, is so easy to carve, and has a great ratio of meat-to-fat-to-crackling.
For other roast pork goodness, please check out my previous posts:

• PORKTOBERFEST (Pork knuckle)
• PORKTOBERFEST II (Rack of pork)
• The Best Roast Pork Shoulder and my Tips for Perfect Crackling
• PORKTOBERFEST III (Pork shoulder)
• Roast Pork Belly
• PORKDATE (Rack of pork)
• Mexican Feast, Numero Tres (Pork carnitas)
• Germany 2011: Spanferkel, or "Pig on a Spit"
• Epic Pulled Pork Lunch
• Slow-Roasted Shoulder of Pork
• Loin of Pork with Bay Leaves (no crackling)
• Calming Winter Lunch (Pork loin, crackling separate)
• PORK (Pork leg)